


i tell my love (to wreck it all)

by alesford



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Broken Families, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Earp Couch Con Fanfic Contest 2018, F/F, Feels, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Non-Canonical Character Death, Spoilers for 3x02, Spoilers for Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 12:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16492220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesford/pseuds/alesford
Summary: In one alternate universe, Wynonna Earp let go of the rope.





	i tell my love (to wreck it all)

**Author's Note:**

> This story is my entry for the 'Alternate Universe' category for the [**Earp Couch Con Fanfic Contest**](https://www.earpcouchcon.com/feed/fanfic-contest-announcement).

 

**i tell my love (to wreck it all)**

 

-

 

“Waverly, baby girl, please forgive me.”

 

She thinks she hears Nicole's voice through the wind. Sure and strong but still so, so afraid. She thinks she hears, _It's okay, Wynonna._ And she isn't sure if it's wishful thinking; if it’s her head telling her heart that the world isn't going to end when she opens her hands and lets the rope slip through her fingers like water.

 

The rope burns against her hands worse than the biting cold. It hurts more than waking up on the side of a cliff with a dislocated shoulder. It’s more painful than pushing a baby out of her hooha while lying on top of an 8-ball.

 

It shatters her heart in a way that’s somehow worse than putting Alice in her sister’s arms and saying goodbye. Because saying goodbye to Alice is temporary. One day, when the curse is broken and the seventy-seven are dead and burning in hellfire, when they all can finally breathe again, Wynonna will get to tell her daughter how much she loves her.

 

But this? The, _I love you, Nicole,_ that leaves her lips is a permanent farewell.

 

There is no hope for a future meeting.

 

There won’t be another chance to say _I’m sorry_ or _I love you_ or _Thank you for being there for me._ Not to Nicole Haught. Not to this woman who has so easily made a home in her sister’s heart and cared for it with such fierce protection and adoration. Not to this woman who has taken Wynonna as she is, slipping into the cracks and crevices of the broken pieces left behind by an absent mother, a drunk of a father, and an older sister gone far too soon. The woman who helped make her feel whole and important and loved again, who has been a part of this thing that feels a lot like family.

 

She thinks she hears Nicole’s voice on the wind, carried by the cold that chills Wynonna to the marrow of her bones. She thinks she hears, _I’ll always love you, Waverly Earp._

 

She doesn’t wait to hear the sound of her decision hitting the rocks below.

 

She doesn’t listen for the aftermath because she’s already drowning in her own anguish and the world is swimming around her and Waverly is screaming at her and Dolls is engulfed in flame and Doc is still on the ground and Nicole is—

 

Nicole is gone.

 

And Waverly is hurtling towards the cliff’s edge with Nicole’s name on her lips and Wynonna reaches for her without thought, wrapping her good arm around Waverly’s waist to spin her away from the brink.

 

She fights Wynonna’s hold without any real intention to break free. She struggles because she’s struggling and she cries. She cries and screams and the only thing that Wynonna can do is follow her to the hard and frozen earth as she sinks to her knees.

 

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._

 

It isn’t enough.

 

And Waverly is sobbing and Dolls is on the ground and Doc is stumbling to his feet and bondage Bob is nowhere to be seen and Nicole is gone and motherfucking Bulshar is clapping like this is the end of a goddamn _show._ Something for his own entertainment, basking in her sorrow and the suffering of her friends. Her _family._

 

She’s ready to pull away from her sister, to push to her feet and give chase after the bastard. To strangle him with her own bare hands if she has to. But then she hears Doc’s voice calling her name and Waverly clings to her like she used to do so many years ago.

 

(Before the Seven. Before the curse. Before all of this.)

 

“Wynonna!”

 

They carry each other, Wynonna and Waverly, fighting against the gravity of the situation to stumble forwards, to hobble their way towards a panicked Doc and a grounded Dolls. Who isn’t moving. Who isn’t breathing. Whose heart isn’t beating.

 

Wynonna stutters over her words. She asks what happened. She tries and tries and tries to wake him.

 

Waverly tries, too. She tries chest compressions and CPR, ignoring the tears that trail down her cheeks and pitter patter from her chin and onto Dolls’ chest like rainfall on a grey and gloomy day.

 

Doc watches. He watches with his own quiet tears, grief mounting.

 

“He’s gone, Wynonna,” Waverly whispers. “He’s gone. And Nicole is…” Her voice cracks. It breaks into a choked sob.

 

It breaks Wynonna’s heart.

 

Wynonna sees the realization fall like a shadow over Doc’s face.“Officer Haught?”

 

He knows the answer. He knows the goddamn answer. Why does he have to ask?

 

Pouring salt into an open wound from which Wynonna isn’t sure she will ever truly heal.

 

She shakes her head. He removes his hat and holds it to his chest, over the space where his heart _aches._ Waverly weeps.

 

Waverly weeps and they’re silent tears now. She stays where she is, kneeled beside Dolls’ prone form, and turns her gaze towards Wynonna, eyes red-rimmed and hard. Cold. Angry.

 

“Why, Wynonna?”

 

_Why?_

 

Wynonna closes her eyes and tries to catch her breath, tries to find all the things she wants to say and all that she needs to say, too.

 

And all of it evades her because the only words to pass her lips are so wholly inadequate and meaningless in the face of death. The only thing she can seem to stutter is, “She’s… she told me to let go. She told me to let go and I did. I let go. I let go. _I let go._ ” Wynonna repeats herself like a broken record as if the truth will set her free instead of caging her in a place of torturous heartbreak.

 

Wynonna wants to loose these words from her throat, the ones that say, _Please, Waverly, please forgive me,_ but they catch, too big and too much to ask. They’re scratchy and painful and she can’t help but think that maybe they deserve to die there, unsaid. She isn’t sure that she deserves forgiveness and she can’t help but think that she chose wrong.

 

(She knows she chose wrong. She won’t let anybody tell her anything different. Even years down the road. Even after the seventy-seven are gone. Even after the curse is broken.

She chose wrong.)

 

She chose wrong because Waverly turns away from her. She turns away from her and stares across the empty, open space. She stares at the cliff’s edge when Wynonna hears her whisper, “I hate you.”

 

Her body bows. Her voice cracks. Her heart shatters into a billion and one pieces. There is nothing left inside of her. Nothing left to break that hasn’t already broken. She is hollowed out by grief and despair, filled with shards and fragments of _what could have been._

 

What might have been in another universe in which she didn’t let go. In which she held tighter to the ones she loved. In which she hasn’t lost everything and everyone.

 

Wynonna thinks she hears Nicole’s voice on the wind. _I’ll always love you._

 

She wants to scream to the heavens above, _There’s nothing left to love._

 

Wynonna let go of the rope. She let go. _She let go._

 

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._

 

_Please forgive me._

 

- 

 

 _i tell my love to wreck it all_  
_cut out all the ropes and let me fall_  
_my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my_  
_right in the moment this order's tall_  
_\- 'skinny love' by bon iver_


End file.
